It feels wrong to say 'Happy New Year' while much of Australia continues to burn in one of the worst bushfire seasons in living memory, during one of the worst droughts on record.
Instead, I wish you all a safe new year. May your homes, family and communities be safe. May they receive much-needed rain this year and may we all band together, despite political differences to do the necessary work to make Australia's future a more sustainable one.
I'm not generally one for big new years resolutions but there are a few areas I would like to focus on this year, with a continued emphasis on simplifying life to give time to the things we value most being the main goal. Living more sustainably and reducing waste is high on my agenda.
After a hot, tough and dry start to summer, we are already looking forward to winter and to firing up the wood oven again for homemade pizza's.
Minimising wasted time online
I openly admit I have fallen into the trap of spending too much time mindlessly scrolling online recently. It's been hot, I have been tired and it's an easy trap to fall into. But I have gone through and deleted all the pages on Facebook which I don't interact with, aren't relevant to the life we want to live and don't bring me value personally. I don't want to consume or shop for fun and I was finding myself following links to things we didn't need or even want. At one point I even found myself obsessively researching natural dummies with pretty hand made dummy chains after falling down the beautiful rabbit hole that is Instagram and babies. Seriously. Like our baby is going to care what a dummy looks like, or if she has the coordinating dummy chain. Marketing. It's powerful stuff. I'll be buying whatever natural rubber dummy I can source locally and I have also deleted the offending rabbit hole inducing apps off my phone. I feel better for it already.
Reducing household waste
We still don't do this well since moving here. We have no curbside pick up or recycling which I find a real struggle. Also, we are on a really tight budget and grocery shopping frugally for a family of 5 whilst minimising packaging is difficult. I already use cotton tote bags instead of plastic bags, cotton produce bags for fruit and vegetables and we compost paper/cardboard/green waste here on the farm but that leaves a lot of packaging still for the bin. The way I hope to achieve this is to tackle one area at a time. Because we live out of town, it is going to take more effort and organisation to achieve a low waste lifestyle. But our planet desperately needs us all to make every sustainable change we can, no matter how small it may seem.
Over the coming weeks a few changes I will be slowly implementing are:
- Set up a lidded bin that fits in the back of my car to take recycling into the town recycling depot weekly. I have just found out this is a free service but it will require a little more organisation on my behalf. We drink a lot of milk and plastic milk bottles are our biggest waste item.
- Plan our grocery list to better and more consistently support the local butcher and greengrocer. This will take more time than going to one big convenience supermarket. I will need to have a small esky and ice blocks to keep groceries cool as well as remember to take sturdy plastic containers for meat. To help me with this transition I will put together a small kit to keep in my pantry specifically for this purpose. On the days I need to go shopping I can simply grab it on my way out the door and pop it in my car knowing everything I need is there.
- Sew more cotton muslin bags for small loose produce like nuts. (with op-shopped muslin wraps)
- Transition to natural hand made block soap for doing dishes with a natural bristled brush.
If I can make these changes over the coming months and consistently stick to them on top of the things we already do, I will be really pleased. When we purchase a gas oven and get a proper indoor kitchen set up in the yurt I will be better able to reduce plastic packaging too by increasing what I make from scratch again. The reality is that any of us can only do our best at any given time.
Continue with our 'Year Of Less'
Although my blogging on Our Families Year Of Less in 2019 was somewhat haphazard, it was a really helpful challenge that simmered along quietly in the background. We certainly did it imperfectly but it helped turn what was a seriously financially tight year into a positive and helpful challenge. I reckon 2019 forever changed the way we consume as a family and moving forward I hope to further lean into this new knowledge and a new way of thinking more deeply. I hope to do this by:
- Assess the items we bring into our life into a need vs want and whether it will truly bring us any long term value.
- Continue to first turn to thrifting/up-cycling for everything we need, only buying new as a last resort.
- Continue to foster an attitude of deep gratefulness for all that we have despite hurdles and bumps in the road.
- Include, teach and empower our children on how to make greener, more sustainable choices. Accept when they buy the plastic crappy thing with their own money because autonomy is important.
- Continue to regularly take time out to explore the beautiful natural area we live in with picnics, trips to the beach and bushwalks on a regular basis.
Throughout this coming year, I want to share more deeply about how we do and don't achieve the goals I have discussed here. I want to be more open about the hurdles we face and how we either manage or fail to overcome them. It won't be perfect, or polished. I may get criticism because there are other people doing it better, and that's ok. We are a family of 5, soon to be 6 living off-grid, with a farm to establish, in a tiny home on a tight budget. We are working out how to live more sustainably in a system built on consumerism, convenience and fast fashion.
- Share more progress shots, even when it's not pretty. Progress/building is often ugly until the last 15% gets done which is the pretty part. But that's also the reality of using second-hand materials. I aim to be real and honest and I hope to share more about our progress before it gets to the pretty stage.
- Have the confidence to blog regularly on these topics, even when I feel it might be dull or I might presume others are doing it better. Our story is unique to us, and we have our own voice to add as a big family, living small.
- Aim to blog twice a week, even if it's short. I love writing and I love the space I share here with you. It may not be the biggest or grandest corner of the internet but it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes the mean girl in my head fools me into thinking that I don't have the expertise to share what we are doing, but I have finally come to know this year that’s a load of utter rubbish which only holds me back from doing something I love.
And finally, I aim to always go gently in all I set out to do. Some weeks we will nail our goals, and some weeks will be all about survival and sleep with a new baby. Both are perfectly OK. Simple living is not a competition, and it's not about having the perfect Instagram feed. To me, it's always been about how to transition from the life we live, towards the life we value. Thank you for taking the time to check in here, and I look forward to many new and interesting conversations this year.
What are your hopes for the new year?
Much love,
Emma
xx
What are your hopes for the new year?
Much love,
Emma
xx
